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Do bloggers make money blogging? Like, Really?

A s a newbie blogger or someone considering to become one, it is possible you have many questions, especially about making money blogging.

For example, you must be wondering, how much money can you make blogging? Do bloggers make money? Can blogging be a source of fulltime income?

According to Worldometers, WordPress bloggers publish 1.3 billion blog posts daily. This number is higher because WordPress is just one of the most common blogging platform with a market share of approximately 60%.

Why would bloggers publish so many posts daily if none of them makes money?

These five are just a few examples of bloggers out there who have turned their blogging businesses into careers and fulltime income sources.

Caution: Do not let their beautiful income reports fool to believing that they attained that success in one day, month or year and so on. It is always a journey of small steps just as Pat Flynn puts it below;

“I didn’t get to where I am overnight. It’s been a long road filled with lots of hustle and my fair share of mistakes. And yet, through persistence and passion, I’ve managed to build something amazing—something I never thought possible when I first launched SPI.”
Pat Flynn

How do bloggers make money from blogging?

For a blog to make money, you must monetize it using different strategies and income sources.

In case you are still wondering how much money can you make blogging, it depends on how well you use the six strategies below and many others to monetize your blog.

a) Affiliate marketing

This is where you recommend other brands products to your blog readers, and you will get a commission/a certain percentage of the sale every time one of your audience makes a purchase using your affiliate link.

You can click on any of the image (s) below to get a detailed explanation of this method of making money blogging.

b) Advertising

A monetization method where you display ads in your blog and get paid every time your readers click, view or perform any other action. There are many advertising methods and models you can use, such as the most common Google AdSense

Click on any of the images below to get a detailed explanation of this method of making money blogging.

c) Sell digital products

This is where you create your products, such as eBooks, courses, software, and themes among others, and sell them to your readers.

d) Offer/sell services

As a blogger you are already an expert at something, so you can offer coaching, consulting, freelancing, virtual assistance, personal training and other forms of services to interested audiences.

e) Sell physical merchandise

Since you have a marketing platform-your blog, you can use it to sell other products by adding a shopping cart function to it. For example, a fashion blogger can easily sell trending products from famous stores, such as Amazon and eBay from their blog.

f) Sell memberships

Some bloggers create high-value content and sell it to their readers. For example, you can create a bloggers club, job board for freelance bloggers or a paid membership forum with highly valuable content.

By traffic I mean your blog must have visitors/readers to make money blogging.

The higher the traffic or page views, the higher the possibility of making money online.

Caution: You can have high traffic but not still make money blogging because it also depends on factor c and e below. Have you monetized your blog well? And, do your readers trust you?

Most bloggers-me included, confess that Pinterest is their primary source of traffic.

Apart from Pinterest, other social media platforms, Google, paid advertising, forum marketing, and influencer outreach are also other strategies you can use to promote your blog and drive traffic to it.

Visit this post on promotion methods you can use to drive traffic to your blog to learn more.

c) Monetization strategy

Some monetization methods are more profitable than others. For example, selling your digital product is more useful than using advertising.

Also, using multiple monetization strategies is more profitable than relying on one alone.

Therefore, home much money can you make blogging depends on how well you shall monetize your blog.

Tip: Visit similar blogs in your niche and find out the best strategies they use and borrow from them. Also, reach out to individual bloggers or join social media communities for bloggers, such as Facebook groups, to learn more.

Here comes the real deal now. I know you know that customers only buy from people they trust, right?

Your blog must build a community of fans and engaged readers before you can make money from it.

How much money can you make blogging largely depends on whether your audience sees you as an authority, professional and trustworthy person.

There are many strategies you can use to build customer trust and high engagement, such as replying to their comments and email marketing among others as explained in this post: 15 strategies you can use to build customer trust and engagement.

f) Investment and expenses

Are you investing/spending money on the right blogging tools, resources, and networks?

For example, have you invested in the right theme, web hosting, social media management tools, web designer among other resources?

In summary, whether you shall earn money blogging will depend on the decisions you make about what to allow and what to let go of your blog.

What should you focus on as a new blogger?

Now that we are clear on these three important facts: a) bloggers make money, b) the amount of money you make depends on several factors and c) making money from a blog is not an overnight success story; I can finally tell you the truth.

Blogging is a gateway or bridge that will bring the right buyers to you.

Therefore, as a new blogger, your main focus should not be “how much money can you make blogging,” instead put more emphasis on creating content/products which will attract buyers to your site.

Bitter truth: No one will ever want to buy from you if you are not giving any value in exchange. Most importantly, they will never stick around long enough to allow you to transform them from visitors into buyers, subscribers, and your brand ambassadors if they get disappointed from the first encounter in your blog.

Note: Of course you should monetize your blog at all times, what I am trying to tell you is stop stressing over why you are not making millions at the beginning and begin to measure if you are building an engaged audience or not.

Choose your focus: Your blogging journey can be dull, lonely and discouraging at the beginning-every blogger starts there-the difference between those who give up and others who persevere till the riches come is one-having the right focus: money or your audience.

Wise and successful bloggers know that when they focus on building trust, listening, engaging and offering quality to their target audience, the money will eventually come in bulk.

Conlusion

H ow much money can you make blogging? A tough, yet exciting question, right?

I hope you have found the perfect answer in this post.

In summary, the answer is simple; the amount of money you will make out of your blog depends on several factors, such as niche, traffic, monetization strategy and audience trust/engagement among others.

This explains why some bloggers make extremely more than others at the end of the day.

The simple rule is to stop comparing yourself and start building an audience and driving traffic to your blog by creating great content/products and promoting your blog widely.

As straightforward as this, if want to make one million from your blog, then get active and build a community of 1 million engaged readers. How? Simple be valuable, useful, consistent and solve their problems.

Feel free to leave a comment below asking a question or even better provide a suggestion of a post you would like me to write about.

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My name is Hildah Mwende. I am a freelance writer and a coach. My expertise falls in the following subject areas, but it is not limited to them: WordPress, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. Find a comprehensive list and description of all my competencies and specialties here.

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